A floodplain is a fertile area of land periodically refreshed by rising water that leaves behind soil, sand, gravel or loamy stuff. "Floodplain" is also the name of Kronos Quartet's latest CD, to be released on Tuesday. Kronos plays Portland next Feb. 1.

Think of "Floodplain" as creative fertility, as only Kronos can do.

We're talking 12 commissioned tracks from Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan Serbia, Africa and South Asia. Some of the pieces have been adapted from really old traditions; others are based on popular music from 1940's Egypt and 1970's Iraq. One track was written for Kronos by the Palestinian electronic/hip hop collective Ramallah Underground, whom Kronos founder David Harrington discovered via MySpace.

With 45-plus recordings over 30 years, we've come to expect the unexpected from Kronos, but "Floodplain" has a wildness about it that is especially impassioned and unpredictable. It feels unusually current, even politically current, with music from parts of the world we often only
read about. That's what we love about this string quartet: playing that is exploratory, fearless and full of intent. I recommend it highly.

1. "My Love, Come Quickly": An Arab hit in the 1940s, with luscious, swaying lines of a tango. 2. "Tashweesh" ("Interference"): A collaboration with the musical collective Ramallah Underground based in Palestine. Tashweesh means static, interference, which is what you hear at the beginning of the track. By extension, it means not hearing, miscommunication. Strings and electronics. 3. A Christian hymn, very tonal, to be sung on Good Friday. Earthy yet ethereal, a feeling of deep sorrow. 4. "Getme, Getme" ("Don't Leave, Don't Leave"): The Azerbaijani father-and-daughter duo Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova sing an impassioned song, voices weaving, overlapping, diverging. Recorded live from the Ramadan Nights Festival at London's Barbican Centre. 5. Raga: Kronos violist Hank Dutt plays with Ram Narayan on the sarangi, an unfretted bowed string instrument, sharing timbres in a slow, unmetered exploration of the notes of a raga. Rhapsodic, imitating each other, a wonderful vocal quality. 6. "Oh Mother, the Handsome Man Tortures Me": A fast, popping Iraqi song from the 1970s with rat-a-tat rhythms. 7. Mugam: A soulful Iranian song, with violinist Harrington bending pitches, a wide, intense vibrato and a soft drone in the background. He imitates the sound of the garmon, an accordion-like instrument. The piece could be 700 years old, the program notes say, with highly inflected, ornamented lines, repeated fragments and an insistent, improvised quality. 8. Lullaby: An Iranian song -- with softly bent pitches -- from descendants of African slaves and Arab traders, influenced by cultures passing by the southern coast. 9. A lilting dance by Tanburi Cemil Bey (1871-1916), one of the great Turkish musicians. A swirling violin solo by Kronos' John Sherba. 10. "Kara Kemir": The wonderfully raspy sound of Kazakhstan's two-stringed horsehair fiddle -- nasal, soulful, accelerating to a whirling, spinning climax. Based on a field recording from the 1970s. 11. "Listen to Me, My Fellow Countrymen": We're in mysterious sonic terrain from Ethiopia with a 10-string lyre called a begena, played for centuries by monks in the Ethiopian Orthodox church. It's said to be the descendant of King David's harp, brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Kronos members play other hand-made instruments, including a modified viola. 12. "...hold me, neighbor, in this storm...": A Serbian song is the album's longest track, with warlike explosions, whistles, yelling, the single-stringed gusle, church bells of Serbian Orthodox monasteries, Muslim calls to prayer and the voice of the composer's grandmother. Rhythmic intensity builds to pounding, zipline glisses, weird thumps and drones, singing/calling out, accelerates into a wild violin solo. Powerful stuff.